I love builds where you screw around with Sensors and shoot at the enemy crew individually, but we really aren't set up for that weapon-wise. As such, if we hired a new crewmember, we'd probably want them to man the Doors until an emergency arose which needed them elsewhere.

(I wonder what the flavour behind that is, anyway. Maybe manually approving which doors open and shut, so that you can restrict it to crewmembers, rather than needing to leave them all set to allow anyone through so that you don't end up trapped in your own ship.)

All that said, if anyone out there is on the fence about joining this: this thread could really do with a few more people who don't know what they're doing, FTL is more fun that way. The unmodded game can get a bit repetitive if it's being played by an experienced player who's playing to win, as they aim down the same sort of path every game (I typically play on mods of my own designed to make unviable strategies more viable, giving more variety in the way in which the game plays, especially as the unviable builds that enemies use sometimes suddenly become viable against you).

Up goes another ship of civillians in the name of justice. Luckily, as Firebringer is the commanding officer, he gets the privilege of handling the mountains of paperwork later down the line, not me. (+1 fuel +1 drone +45 scraps)

Spoiler:

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Jump 6/64

Rebel auto ship by a star with no Shields, or Cloak?

Spoiler:

Our weapons operator fails to down the hostile's weapons in time, and our Sensors and hull takes 2 damage from an enemy missile.

Spoiler:

Another missile was fired at us before we were able to take them offline, the solar flare hits us while we had a single shield layer up, but aside from 2 fires started in the Sensors and another non-system room, no further hull damage were taken. (+1 fuel +1 missile +36 scraps)

Spoiler:

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Jump 7/65

Here's the store we spotted a few jumps ago. We got 165 scraps in our holds, and a few weapons to sell if we really need to. Just hope that we'd get that Cloaking system we've been waiting for.

Spoiler:

Not the most impressive of choices on Page 1. The augments aren't worthwhile, and while certainly convenient, more crew of Humans or Engis are more of a luxury than neccesity.

Spoiler:

No cloaking, no teleporter, not even batteries. The weapons offered here are certainly worthwhile of choices though.

It's hard to build synergy out of our weapon selection. (The best synergy would be Charge Ion + Flak II + Flak I + Burst Laser II, firing in that order, but unfortunately it comes to 9 power.)

Given that we already have 6 laser shots in our build, going for the Flak II wouldn't be unreasonable, but completing the build would likely need us to find another weapon some time later. (Something like a Heavy Laser I would be perfect.) If we do buy the Flak II, we're probably not using the Charge Ion long-term, which would be a pity as it's one of the best weapons in the game. (Exception: if we find a beam weapon, in which case Charge Ion + Flak II is amazing support for it; but in that case, we'd have to ditch the Flak I or Burst Laser II or both, which are also some of the best weapons in the game.)

I'm torn between two strategies. One is to not buy anything and hope for a more suitable store in the future. The other is to buy the Flak II as a hedge against not finding anything better (Flak II + Flak I + Burst Laser, 7 power, is a setup that might be good enough to take us to endgame), but keep all our existing weapons so that if something helpful does come up, we can work out what to sell based on what we find. The basic problem is that the Flak II takes so long to charge that we'd be forced into a pretty defensive setup if we buy it, meaning that we'd badly want to find and buy Cloaking – but if we buy it, and buy the upgraded weapon system to use it, we might not be able to afford Cloaking when it comes up! OK, I've decided, the Flak II probably isn't the best of ideas – our existing setup is too good and the Flak would get in its way.

So what else might it be worth buying here? What we really need is more jumps, to have more of a chance of finding useful items. We're in Sector 5, so the Distraction Buoys will give us one extra jump in each of Sectors 6 and 7; that'll probably pay for themselves eventually, but might not do more than that. Likewise, the FTL Recharge Booster makes it easy to run from Rebels, so would allow us to explore beyond the exit and get extra jumps that way, but we're on the verge of being able to do that anyway (Engines 6 is normally enough to make that safe). Note that sectors 6 and 7 can be green sectors; Civilian and Engi would both be great for trying to find systems and weapons to complete our build.

VOTE: 5 (buy some fuel and hull repairs only, and hope to find a better shop or another source of weaponry)

Upon checking the map, it appears there's another store just 2 jumps away. We purchase some fuel and minor hull repairs, but otherwise saves enough scraps for the store around the corner.(-15 scraps +2 fuel +3 hull)

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Jump 8/66

Boarders themselves aren't of issue, but I was hoping more for an event or combat encounter a jump before a store.

Spoiler:

The crew dispatched of the hostiles by forcing the enemy boarders into our Medbay with venting. TehWorst gains another 4 kills and is now experienced in the art of murder. There's also now enough food to keep him fed for a few weeks.

Spoiler:

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Jump 9/67

Here is the other store;

Spoiler:

No cloaking, no teleporter, no hacking, no augments, no crew, mediocre weapons, this store stinks. There are certain options we can make here, but saving the scraps for upgrades is also fine.

That Drone Control is looking really tempting at the moment. We won't need to turn it on most of the time, but it'll be very helpful against enemies with missiles (and there's a decent chance we'll be gifted a free Combat Drone or Beam Drone along the way, which would give us a bit of extra firepower).

Weren't there also some votes for the Fire Beam earlier? It's normally more trouble than it's worth, but we have close to a perfect setup for it (a fast self-chaining ion to reduce the opponent's peak recharge rate, an excellent laser burst size for knocking down the remainder, and the ability to stall if necessary, especially once we have the Defence Drone ready). The main reason not to buy it is not that it's too weak, but that it's a scrap commitment now for something which would mostly only be useful later, meaning we might have trouble in the short term. (We could, however, use it to gain additional rewards against enemies who couldn't pierce our shields, or stretch to make it work in battles where we really want to leave the ship intact, e.g. slavers.) So I'm happy to buy it if other people want to try it out, or to leave it alone if people prefer the more boring and reliable options. If we do buy the Fire Beam, we'd equip it in place of the Artemis, but (until much later in the game) leave it unpowered except in cases where we could deploy it effectively.

VOTE: 1 (either Drone Control on its own, or Drone Control + Fire Beam, depending on what other voters prefer)

2 human boarders arrived in our Life Support, of which Firebringer and TehWorst handled personally. A hack was placed on the enemy Weapon system to ensure their missile does not fire, and our own hail of weaponry easily disabled their ship before they could get away. (+2 fuel +1 missile +42 scraps)

Our hack was placed on the enemy Piloting this time. The same story goes, Charge Ion downs a Shield layer, Flak breaks Shield and deals 1-2 damage, and Burst laser deals 3. Despite the fuel offer, we do not accept their surrender.

I'm not a huge fan of teleportation on Hard, especially when we only have 4 crew and are in a fairly late sector (the opposing boarding defences have had a huge head start, and our ship isn't really set up for boarding support at all). We'll be better off using our last system slot for Cloaking if it appears later on when we can afford it, or just saving the scrap to improve our defences or to get a newly found weapon or drone online. (We should be looking out for Combat I and/or Hull Repair drones, both of which would fit our build quite well, although in rather different ways.)

We forgo the counter-hack to displace our disruption on their Weapons instead. This leaves us with only a maximum of 15% dodge for this fight. Despite our level 2 Hack on their Weapons allowing us the initial alpha strike, we fail to deal any serious damage and take a missile and a heavy laser to the Engines (3 hull damage).

Yet another missile hits our hull, that would be the last damage we take this combat.

Spoiler:

+6 fuel +57 scraps

Spoiler:

Dumping our scraps into Reator to get 3 more bars of Power to work with (-80 scraps +Reactor 16)

Spoiler:

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Jump 7/78

The Reactor upgrade was just in time for a Plasma Storm fight, had we not upgraded we would've only had 6 power to work with (instead of 8)

Spoiler:

2 power into Shields, 1 into Hacking on Piloting and rest into Artemis, Burst laser II and Flak I. Weapons are unpowered after firing and the power is temporarily displaced into Engines for dodge (2x45% dodge success)

Spoiler:

After another volley of ours, all power is diverged into 3 layers of Shields to guarentee we do not take damage from the enemy's Burst laser, but cfj and Firebringer decided to dodge all 3 projectiles with minimal Engines anyway.

Spoiler:

+1 fuel +1 drone +34 scraps

Spoiler:

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Jump 8/79

It's a trap o_O except not really. We got a defense drone, so there ain't much odds in the Pirates dealing any damage to us.

Spoiler:

Double rewards (+4 fuel +3 missiles +62 scraps)

Spoiler:

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Jump 9/80

Exact event from the jump before, I'm sure everything would be fin-

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

I really want to say I saw this coming, but alas, I didn't.

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Jump 10/81

Here's another store. Seeing as I'm gone, it's entirely up to the rest of the crew to decide what to do here.

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

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Vote 21

1)Drones?2)Crew?3)Weapon Pre-igniter?4)Save scraps5)Something else

Voting ends either after (expired on 2019-01-29 12:46:00) or a majority of votes has been reached (for 3 crew, it requires 2 to decide)

That's not the exact same event, it's a much rarer variant (when their comms are down, you can't hail them, so any investigation will have to be more direct). The easiest way to tell them apart is to read what options you have, rather than the introduction text; boarding another ship in event text is nearly always risky.

We lost our Weapons operator, right? We badly need one of those, but a shield operator is less important, so if we didn't hire crew we could move the worst over. That said, three crew is dangerously low for protection from boarders, so we could hire a second Mantis as weapons operator and to form the other half of an internal security squad.

I'd normally buy drones at this point, but the options we have on offer aren't great (the Combat II would work in our build but we won't be able to get everything simultaneously online quickly enough for the expenditure to be worth it). Three crew is also dangerously low for handling repair emergencies, and the System Repair drone could be helpful with that (especially as I'm busy piloting the ship and don't normally have the chance to repair).

The Preigniter, unfortunately, doesn't combo with our current set of weapons (which charge quickly anyway), so we shouldn't stretch to buy it.

With Cpt. CheeryDog's mangled body in the freezer and LtJG. PvtUrist's likely already quatered and digested, the remaining crew consisted of the hard lucked Lt. Firebringer, optimistic yet brutal and highly murderous TehWorst, and the calm and sophisticated Dr. "callforjudgemnt" Jones. Despite the crew's professional competency, we needed more hands on deck, so after some hull repairs and a System Repair drone purchase, the remaining scraps were used to hire the local mercenary mantis, Johnny "Cerebus the 666th" Maloney to serve aboard the ship. (-100 scraps +5 hull +System Repair drone +Mantis crew)

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Jump 11/82

Reasons we don't take this bribe; no fuel, only 1 drone and 25 scraps. Choosing to fight this encounter instead has the chance to offer us a double reward (wreckage of the enemy, as well as the possible reward from the distress victim), the enemy's weaponry can barely deal damage to us, as well as the fact that our newest weapons operator could do with some field experience.

Spoiler:

The enemy deployed 2 mantis boarders, of which Firebringer and TehWorst managed to hold their own against. 4 fuel is nice, but that ain't enough scraps to justify not murdering.

Spoiler:

A missile actually manages to land in our Piloting, reminding me to raise dodge even when there's a defense drone up, as it's possible for it to miss if the missile comes in from a specific angle to it.

Spoiler:

But full repair anyway, totally calculated. (+40 scraps + 13 hull)

Spoiler:

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Jump 12/83

hostile encounter; Auto-Assault armed with Heavy laser, Basic laser, Artemis, Ion Bomb and Laser drone I (probably would've been safer for me to deploy the Defense drone instead of a Weapons hack, as long as their Ion Bomb doesn't target and hit our Shields, we don't take damage from them.)

Spoiler:

Our alpha strike once again proves ineffectual, and we're now facing down taking potential damage from missiles that would've been avoidable if I had deployed the Defense drone instead.

Spoiler:

But it would appear luck is with us, one of our ion projectiles makes contact with the hostile missile, destroying it mid-flight.

Spoiler:

The enemy weaponry are crippled, as the Rebel AI made no attempt to run despite taking further damage, this is the end of the fight.

Diving against Rebel E1337 Fighter armed with Flak II, Dual laser, Artemis, some sort of bomb and Teleporter. Level 4 Engins and level 3 Hack means the only threats we have to deal with are boarders and 1 ASB.

Spoiler:

ASB dodged, assuming we immediately jump once our FTL drive charges, there shouldn't be any more danger to our ship or crew in this encounter

Spoiler:

Here are the Sector 7 jump choices; civ sector and rebel stronghold.

Spoiler:

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Vote 22

1)Civillian Sector (high)2)Rebel Stronghold (low)

Voting ends either after (expired on 2019-01-30 12:46:00) or a majority of votes has been reached (for 4 crew, it requires 3 to decide)

VOTE: 1 We can totally take the Rebel stronghold, but sector 7 is a bad time for it to come up. I agree, we want more shops really; if we tried to face the Flagship in this state we'd be taking a lot of damage, possibly more than our maximum hull.